Logging: The Silent Crisis

A two year Greenpeace investigation has confirmed that logging in the Amazon is still out of control and often taking a predatory form. Governance in the timber sector in the Brazilian Amazon is weak and open to exploitation, allowing criminals launder illegal timber as legal with official documentation. It is estimated that in Para State the largest producer and exporter of timber in Brazil, 78% of logging occurring there is illegal. Greenpeace investigated specific cases of the sector’s systemic crime and found links between cases of fraud and the global marketplace. The United States is the largest importer of Brazilian timber and companies like Lumber Liquidators, the country’s largest national hardwood flooring retailer, has purchased wood from exporters that have bought wood from saw mills that have processed laundered timber.

This investigation below discusses the Brazilian timber sector today and explains how the system is designed to fail and easily defrauded. Then the investigation illustrates on five emblematic case studies of timber laundering on a massive scale that until recently have flown under the radar. The investigation then follows the timber from the forest to the saw mill to the exporter to the USA, European Union, and Israel where valuable Amazon timber varieties like Ipe are utilized for walkways, piers, hardwood flooring, decking, and siding.

The latest updates

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Sawmills in the Brazilian Amazon are laundering illegal timber and sending shipments overseas. It’s against the law to place illegal timber on the European market, yet the authorities are doing very little about it. Two weeks ago, Greenpeace...

Crossposted from Grist by Amelia Urry Perhaps you have heard about Ebola, otherwise known as The Most Terrifying Disease Of Our Modern Times (Sorry, MERs; panic is a fickle friend). But you might not have heard that Ebola’s origin story also...

Deep in the Amazon, Greenpeace went undercover over the last few weeks using covert GPS locators, to monitor logging trucks shuttling between illegal logging camps and saw mills that export to the U.S. and Europe. During the day, empty logging...

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Media Contact:

Kat Clark (San Francisco)

415-529-0941

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